


a history of blisters

by fleurmatisse



Series: west virginia, mountain mama [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Established Relationship, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, plus kissing, references to past injury/scars, that's all this is basically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-18
Updated: 2019-09-18
Packaged: 2020-10-20 23:40:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,419
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20683856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fleurmatisse/pseuds/fleurmatisse
Summary: “How about this,” Dean says, pulling away from Castiel entirely. “You can feel up all my scars, ask me how I got ‘em, anything you want. Then we’re keeping things fair.”“That’s—you just want me to touch you,” Castiel says, borrowing Dean’s deflective humor. It does make him feel better.“Pretty much always,” Dean agrees easily.





	a history of blisters

**Author's Note:**

> consider this a sort of part 3.5 aka what part 4 was supposed to be before i got distracted by domesticity

Dean likes touch. Castiel would have to be brain dead not to notice. He navigates around Castiel’s boundaries like it’s nothing, doesn’t push after Castiel shies away from taking his shirt off, keeps his hands at Castiel’s waist when they kiss. Castiel spends a day distracted by the idea of Dean seeing the scars on his back. How he’d react to the echoes of wounds that almost killed him. Whether he’d want to know the story behind them or if he’d just ignore them. 

He meets Dean on the outskirts of Lebanon a few days after that, his mind made up. Dean smiles at him and then sees what he’s wearing and his face goes carefully blank.

“New sweater?” he says. 

“New to me,” Castiel says, looking down at the technicolor static pattern of the sweater. Hilde gave it to him now that it’s started getting cold in earnest; she claimed just looking at him in a single layer made her cold. “Do you like it?”

“Yeah, it’s, uh,” Dean says, frown sneaking into the corners of his mouth. “Interesting?”

Castiel laughs as he kisses him. “You don’t have to like it.”

Dean grips the bottom of the sweater to keep him close and returns the kiss. “Thank god,” he says, and Castiel laughs again. Dean takes his hand and leads the way to the bunker. “I was thinking we could have a movie marathon. And since Sam isn’t here to talk about how ridiculous they are, how do you feel about slasher movies?”

“Neutral,” Castiel says. Dean raises an eyebrow. “I haven’t seen any.”

“At some point, I will stop being surprised at how sheltered you are,” Dean says. Castiel smiles and directs some of his grace to Dean’s hand so his fingers don’t turn to icicles. “So, movie night: yay, nay? Neutral?” he adds, tilting his head to watch Castiel’s face.

Castiel buries his nerves somewhere around his spleen and says, “I’d like to have a movie night, but there’s something I wanted to do first.”

As soon as they’re in the bunker, Castiel wants to change his mind. He knows Dean would agree to drop it and put on a movie that Castiel wouldn’t be able to focus on. But he has to know what it’s like, what Dean will do, so even though Sam is in Maine and no one else should come to the bunker, he leads them into Dean’s room and shuts the door. Dean reaches for the light. Castiel grabs his wrist before he can flip the switch.

“Wait,” he says.

“Okay,” Dean says. When Castiel stays rigid in front of him, he says, “Cas, we don’t have to do this today. Or ever, if you don’t want to.”

“I want to,” Castiel says, and then, “I’m nervous.”

“I can tell,” Dean says. He hasn’t tried to take his arm back.

“Could you just—kiss me?” Castiel asks, and Dean does. It starts out soft, with lazy kisses Castiel relaxes into. Dean’s free hand comes up to the side of his neck as he steps closer. Castiel grips the side of his shirt and guides his hand under his sweater, loosening his hold on his wrist. Dean flattens his palm against Castiel’s stomach, fingers spread over the scar of a stab wound, and Castiel pulls away from the kiss to breathe.

“Okay?” Dean asks. Castiel nods, slides his hand up to Dean’s forearm, and kisses him again as Dean lets his fingers wander. He touches the gunshot and the Enochian on his side and he curves his hand to Castiel’s back, sparking a line all the way up to his shoulderblade. Castiel bites his lip, hard, makes Dean flinch. 

“Sorry,” he says, forcing his fingers to relax from their deathgrip. He can feel the heat of Dean’s hand hovering an inch from his back. “You can keep going.”

“How about this,” Dean says, pulling away from Castiel entirely. “You can feel up all my scars, ask me how I got ‘em, anything you want. Then we’re keeping things fair.”

“That’s—you just want me to touch you,” Castiel says, borrowing Dean’s deflective humor. It does make him feel better.

“Pretty much always,” Dean agrees easily. He’s got his hands on the hem of his shirt, ready to take it off if Castiel says yes. “Sound like a plan?”

“Yes,” Castiel says, and stops Dean’s hands before they can act. “But, on the bed?”

Dean hums something suggestive, and Castiel cracks a smile as Dean walks him backwards. He sheds his shirt and sits next to Castiel, folding one of his legs under him.

“You wanna turn a light on yet?” Dean asks. In response, Castiel triggers the lamp on Dean’s nightstand. It’s dimmer than the overhead light, warmer. He watches Dean smile, washed with orange light, and runs a thumb under his lip. His fingers drift to the vertical lines he’d noticed the day they met, shinier than the rest of his skin. “Daevas. Shadow demons.”

“I didn’t ask,” Castiel says, frowning as he follows the center scar down almost to his jaw.

Dean shrugs. “I felt like sharing.”

Castiel trails his hand down, finds a spot under Dean’s chin where hair doesn’t grow. “What’s this?”

“That?” Dean says, finding the spot himself. “Huh. I don’t know. Shaving accident maybe?”

There’s a bar under his collarbone, dark around the edges.

“Shapeshifter. Surprised me with a knife.”

Castiel traces his tattoo, anti-possession clear as day, and down his side to a jagged scar that curls around his back. “Werewolf,” he guesses, finding a thinner line below it, a puncture at the beginning.

“Werewolf,” Dean confirms.

“You don’t care that you’re scarred?” Castiel asks..

Dean shrugs again. “Hazard of the job,” he says. “It’s kind of—I don’t know—it’s like proof I survived, I guess?”

Castiel settles his hands on Dean’s knees. “That’s a nice way to think of it.”

“Yeah?”

Castiel nods. “I think mine might be a curse,” he says. “To make me remember.”

“Well,” Dean says, “you’re in the right place for curse breaking.”   
“As long as I don’t touch any severed animal feet,” Castiel says, smiling as Dean laughs. 

“I wouldn’t rule out  _ all _ animal feet,” Dean says.

“I will,” Castiel says. 

Dean laughs again, leaning back on one hand. “If you insist.” He smiles something that Hilde would call wicked. “You know, I’ve got more scars on my legs if you haven’t gotten your fill.”

“I’m not going to fall for your shameless goading,” Castiel says, even as he leans in.

“No, of course not,” Dean says, smiling into the kiss.

As things get more heated, Dean falls back on the bed, tries to pull Castiel down with him. Castiel rises to his knees, plants one on either side of Dean’s hips, and sits on his thighs, a hand on his stomach to keep him from sitting up.

“I don’t want to talk about them yet,” he says, and Dean looks confused until Castiel pulls off his sweater, drops it off the end of the bed, and this time when Dean’s hands find his back, it’s to press them closer, and Castiel has more interesting things to think about than old scars.

Later, before Castiel gets dressed to go home, he lies on his stomach and lets Dean look at the scars trailing down his back, fingers tracing the spaces in between the branching lines. 

“Lightning,” Castiel says, watching Dean frown from the corner of his eye.

“I wasn’t going to ask,” Dean says, and Castiel believes him.

“I wanted to share.”

Dean lays down beside him, still following the scars where they curl over his shoulder. “It looks like wings.”

“A really shitty bell rang,” Castiel says.

Dean’s hand pauses. “Did you just make a movie reference at me?”

“How could I when I’ve never seen a single movie?” Castiel asks, smirking as Dean sputters with over-the-top indignation. How could Castiel keep something so important from him? Didn’t he know that relationships were built on trust, not secrets? Castiel gets up halfway through his rant to get dressed, waits patiently until he’s finished, and then kisses him soundly. “I promise to tell you if I see any more Jimmy Stewart movies.”

“You even know the actor’s name!” Dean exclaims. “Do I even know you?”

“More than most people,” Castiel says. “Are you going to walk me out or not?”

“Only because you’d get lost without me,” Dean replies, but he’s already up and putting on his clothes. 

**Author's Note:**

> if you're waiting for smut in this series this is the closest it's gonna get ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯  
title is from this is your life by the killers  
i'm on tumblr @ winkingwinchesters if u want sporadic spoilery spn content and sometimes warnings about new fic


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